Although it took a monumental late rally with the goalie pulled in favour of an extra attacker while shorthanded, the Winnipeg Jets found a way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat on Tuesday night, earning a 4-3 overtime triumph over the Washington Capitals.

After losing consecutive games on home ice for the first time this season, the Jets were in jeopardy of falling to 3-3-1 on the homestand but instead improved to 33-15-9 on the season – winning for just the second time in nine overtime games.

And instead of talking about the second three-game losing streak of the season, the Jets can take a deep breath as they prepare to host the Colorado Avalanche on Friday night.

“At the end of the day, it was two losses. It wasn’t like the world was ending,” said Jets centre Bryan Little, whose goal with 8:30 to go in regulation made it a one-goal game. “We knew we had to play better between periods and we came out for the third with a new attitude. We realize that’s how you have to play to get wins. You have to claw your way through games. It’s a big win, confidence-wise for the team. Hopefully, we can get rolling now.”

Speaking of rolling, after working hard to shake off the rust after missing six weeks with a suspected shoulder injury in his first two games, Jets centre Mark Scheifele was in the middle of almost everything on Tuesday.

Scheifele had two goals in the contest, including the tying goal with 14.4 seconds to go in regulation, and set up the overtime winner by Tyler Myers 2:25 into the extra period.

“It was awesome,” said Myers. “Hasn’t taken him long to get back to his normal self.”

That’s for sure.

After playing 23:32 and being held off the score sheet in Friday’s 5-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues, Scheifele chipped in an assist in Sunday’s 3-1 defeat to the New York Rangers.

On Tuesday, he had a bit more spring in his step and was back in his offensive rhythm – making an abundance of plays and showing good finish in tight.

Scheifele drove hard to the net and banged in loose puck at 14:41 of the first period, but it was his late goal that forced overtime.

Jets captain Blake Wheeler unloaded a shot from the point that was blocked, but ended up on the stick of Scheifele – who showed patience and beat Braden Holtby through the five-hole rather than just firing away.

“Obviously every game I’m feeling better, every shift I’m feeling better,” said Scheifele.

It’s not like the Jets have abandoned their defensive principles, but it seems like the mistakes they’re making are being converted into goals right now.

With 27.7 seconds left in the first period, the Jets failed to clear the defensive zone and Nicklas Backstrom evened the score.

Andre Burakovsky and John Carlson had the other goals for the Caps.

Jets centre Matt Hendricks left the game at 7:11 of the second period after taking a blindside hit from Capitals defenceman Madison Bowey, who received a minor for interference.

Jets head coach Paul Maurice said it was too early to tell if Hendricks had suffered a concussion.

“He’s getting checked out. It’s not diagnosed,” said Maurice. “You saw the hit, but we don’t have it as a concussion yet, He doesn’t believe he is, he’s feeling pretty good right now, so we’ll re-assess in the morning.”

Wheeler was emotional when he met with the media after the game.

“It wasn’t a matter of effort. We were just in a bit of a rut, pretty banged up team we are. We’re not the team that we were a month and a half ago,” said Wheeler. “We’re banged up. So we’re trying to hang on here and figure it out how we’re going to win games with the group we have now. It wasn’t pretty at any point in time in the game,” said Wheeler. “I just think that we’ve got to pump the brakes here a little bit. We’re talking Stanley Cup contender, we haven’t even made the (expletive) playoffs. We’re building this up a bit bigger than it is. We’re just trying to get better every single game…But this is an organization that has never won a playoff game. So we’re working on changing that culture every single day. That’s a really hard thing to do. We have a really young team that’s working on that every single day. I just think that, you know, the expectations should be high, because I think we have an exciting team to watch. But we have a ways to go before we reach the goal we’ve set in this too.

“It almost felt like the ground was going to fall underneath us from losing two games. We’ve got to make the playoffs. I think we should all be excited about our team and where we’re at right now, but it’s going to be tough. We’re in a dogfight to make the playoffs right now. At no point should we expect to go out and blow out a team like the Washington Capitals. It was an even-fought hockey game, we were able to gut one out. I mean, shorthanded, score a goal to tie the game, that should tell you everything you need to know about our group.”

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